Day 12

It's Wednesday, and everything's fantastic! I juiced up: red leaf lettuce, parsley, cucumber, celery, carrot, apple, pear, ginger, lime, and fennel this morning and mixed it together to make 4L of juice. That will last the day; I might need to make another L later; we'll see.

The last couple days I've developed excema on the back of my left hand; it's terribly itchy and I keep telling myself it's a detox reaction and that my body will heal itself when it's ready. The other detox symptom I'm having is roseacea on my face; at times my face will be fuscia - REALLY bright and red. I'm glad to be going to Reiki Level One this weekend; perhaps that will help my body release the toxins it has stored up and make this a gentle detox. :) Got a body fat/body water scale yesterday and was a little surprised at the reading, but it is good to have a baseline. Interesting that the naturopath has done as much as he feels he can in terms of helping me cleanse; I'll continue with the juice feast as long as I feel it's helpful (probably 'til Dec 1st or so), as I think there is more that *I* can do. And the one big big key that is missing in my daily life right now is daily exercise. A year ago I was rowing 10 kms a day, 6 days a week. The past year (partly because of surgery; mostly because of laziness), I haven't rowed hardly at all. I really need to exercise regularly and I think it will help immensely for detoxing.

Went to Tai Chi class last night which was good; although I dreamed about it afterwards, too. LOL

We're just at story hr at the library (the kids are in Hallowe'en costumes - very cute!) and are heading to swimming this afternoon (I'll swim a km while the kids are in lessons). We are also putting together two shoeboxes for "Operation Shoebox"; another homeschooling family's church supports this cause - the filled shoeboxes are collected and distributed to underpriviliged children around the world. And then we're off to pick-up our weekly produce box at the local organic farm.

Yesterday we were at the local Nature House for the annual salmon run. Thousands of salmon come up the river to spawn; it's quite something to see (and smelly, later on in the season!). We had an organized fieldtrip with a park naturalist who told the children lots of stories about local First Nations' history and the salmon. It's a beautiful, protected park area and is a joy to take the children into nature (reminding me of Richard Louv's book, Last Child in the Woods - excellent read). We are very very fortunate where we live to be surrounded by large expanses of natural beauty.

DH is home in 53 days. woooo hoooooo.

Story hour's nearly over. Have a great day! :)

Dreams

Having some pretty vivid dreams on this juice feast. Last night, one of them (I have a few every night that I remember), I was in a pool with my dd. We were swimming with kickboards, and for some reason I turned my back on her. When I turned around to see her, the pool surface was flat - not a ripple anywhere. Instantly, I knew she hadn't gotten out of the water; she was under it. I swam along the edge to the other end of the pool, and then I saw her, on the other side, on the bottom of the pool. I did this huge dive down and made it to right beside her. Holding on with one hand to the ledge, with my right arm outstretched I tried to reach her... she was right there in front of me, yet I couldn't reach her. I heard her panicked crying for me underwater, "MOMMY! MOMMY!" I ran out of air and had to surface. No one was in the pool room but I knew there were people (incl a lifeguard) in the adjoining room and was just about to scream for help when I woke up. Thankfully it was morning already, because I did NOT want to go back to sleep, back into that dream. What a horrible feeling that was - being so close and yet not being able to reach her. Upon waking, I realized that my biggest fear in life is not around finances or anything else; it's me being responsible for losing my children, it's my fear that i can't keep them safe every second of every day.

What a way to start the day, with adrenaline pumping through you like that. :(

Day 10

Things are going great. At the moment I'm printing off Hallowe'en colouring pages for my youngest, getting the oldest set up on a computer game (I'm hogging it right now, LOL), making veggie stirfry & brown rice for the kids for dinner, and juicing (yes, all these things at once - multi-tasker-extraordinaire!).

Today's Juices:
Romaine Lettuce with a little Pear and ginger (1.5L)
Carrot-Apple-Ginger with Spirulina added (1L)
Cucumber-Pineapple-Celery-Red Pepper with just a little carrot (1.5L)

Yesterday I spent the afternoon outside in the glorious autumn sunshine with my daughter, in the garden/greenhouse, harvesting corn and planting garlic. Afterwards we made pumpkin pie from scratch, and I tried a juice that was pumpkin, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. I guess I'm not used to the taste of raw pumpkin; it was alright, but not outstanding, imo. I'll have to give myself time to adjust to the flavours of raw foods in their entirety. ;) And yes, it was a little hard having a pumpkin pie in the fridge, staring me in the face every time I opened it. LMAO Tomorrow we'll take it to Grammy & Grampa's for dessert. They'll appreciate it and it will be out of my fridge.

That's all for now. DS is waiting (fairly patiently) for the computer.
ttyl
~n~

Day 8

I had a post from Day 6, but something was up with Blogger that day so I'll have to post it later when I get a chance. So today's Day 8 and I am really into the swing of thing with juicing. I have had 3L of juices today and 1L of water and I have another L of juice prepared for dinner already. I am working on sourcing affordable, organic greens and will start growing sprouts at home as I have everything I need for that already. But everything's going really well overall. People look at me like I have three heads when they see me drinking out of a mason jar and when I tell them I'm on a cleanse/juice feast, but I'm not letting strange looks bother me. ;)

I'm really starting to get a sense of... well, it's hard to describe. A few months ago, during tai chi class, I had this moment of awareness where I saw everyone in the class as their skeletons. (Sounds weird, I know) It was this thought of "Wow, underneath whatever we look like on the outside of our bodies, we ALL have the same internal structure! And when doing tai chi, I can really see now how we are working to maintain the flexibility and health of our bodies." It was a really powerful insight for me and stayed with me for many days. Well, now I am starting to feel... not like a skeleton, for I'm no where near that thin, LOL, but more like I simply have an awareness that I'm no longer a plus-size person, I'm no longer obese. I have a real sense of my skeletal structure, of how it supports me. It's no longer covered with as many extra inches. And that is a huge change in my self-perception, as you can imagine.

Today's juices:
Juice#1 (1L) - yam, carrot, apple, ginger, cinnamon
Juice #2 (2L) - chard, celery, carrot, apple, pear, ginger
Juice #3 (1L) - spinach, celery, carrot, apple, ginger, lime
(Wow, that's carrot/apple/ginger in each one. But the ginger is soooooo nice this time of year when the weather is cooling off, especially with the cooling, cleansing effect of the greens on the body.)

Oh, and the herbal supplement Cascara Sagrada has a VERRRRRRYYYYY strong effect on my body. WOOOOOOOOOWEEEEEE.


'nuff said. ;)


To Your Health,
~n~

Day 4

Good day of feasting today. We have been out/on the road since 8 this morning so I will be GLAD to get into bed tonight. I took the cooler and juices out of the freezer with me today and I can't say I enjoyed the kale-cabbage-green bean-celery-carrot-apple combination. Green Bean does NOT make for a delicious juice, imo, at this moment. Maybe it'll grow on me. Anyways I did enjoy the celery-carrot-apple combination and did get my whole head of celery and 2 lbs of greens into me already, which is great.

Other great news is that my checkup with the naturopath went fantastically well. I'm on homeopathics at the moment, simply to assist the cleansing process (I started them 6 weeks ago). 6 weeks ago I needed 1 amplification on the vega testing. Today: none. Which means that my system is running more optimally, essentially. Also, all previous indications have improved significantly. WAHOO!!! I was pretty pleased.

Feeling a little hungry at the moment, but it's probably just that I consumed most of the juices earlier in the day, as opposed to yesterday, when I left them until later in the day (4-7 p.m.; not a great time to be downing 3+L of juice). Definitely, I must try too be consistent throughout the day - sipping a little every hour or two, for sure.

Overall, though - no detox symptoms and I'm feeling great. I'm heading to Tai Chi class tonight and will continue on this feast with vigor! :)

Juice Feast Begun...

Well, officially I have begun my juice feast. I am now on Day 3 (if you don't count the two days previous where I drank 4+L of juice daily but still ate minimal amounts of food - a banana and some carrots sticks one day, for example... so really, those are nearly juice feasting days as well). Anwyays, the past two days I have had no solid food whatsoever. I am making some really yummy juices, including one that I just LOVE that is from Angela Stokes' book, The Juice Feaster's Handbook (available at http://www.rawreform.com/): Pineapple, celery, and red pepper. who KNEW this would be such a delicious combination?! (well, Angela, for one - LOL) I am SO grateful to have her book to turn to. It is such a wealth of knowledge and experience packed into it. I'd highly recommend having it beside you if you attempt to juice feast.

So far, no massive pangs of hunger. I did go on a nutritional analysis website one day and calculate out if I was meeting my RDAs through juicing and was delighted to see that I am, with just a few minor exceptions (my fat intake was low (I had 10g; they recommended 73g), and my sodium was half of what the RDA is(1000mg:2400mg); protein I had 30+ grams and they recommended 50). I was 1500 calories, where they recommended 2200, but I know that 1500 is not overly low. I have read various research that indicates people live longer on lower calorie lifestyles - like 1200-1500, not the 2000 generally recommended in North America. But good things were that I am meeting the RDAs for things like iron, calcium, potassium, riboflavin and thiamine, vitamins C & A. Oh, and OOPS, my cholesterol intake was only 0.57mg compared to the RDA of 300. I guess my raw vegan juicing diet isn't as unhealthy for you as the standard North American diet (I can't remember the last time I had Hamburger Helper or Kraft Dinner or a Twinkie).

And I had a moment of panic yesterday morning when I realized there was only one apple in the house. LOL I thought, oh noooooo, how am I ever going to get through the day without more apples?! But I did. In one juice I used pomegranate, in another I used frozen blue and blackberries, and of course there was that pineapple. So I managed.

I had considered adding my beginning measurements on here, but I'm not going to. I don't want this to the juice feast to be about weight loss. I want to maintain the focus on general health and well-being. So while I know what my measurements are, I won't be sharing them. I am planning, at this moment, to feast for probably 30 or 45 days, but will remain open and listen to my body. It may be that the best decision will be to end it early. In any case, on day 3 already, I am successfully juice feasting as we speak. :)

I am making sure I get an entire head of celery juiced and into me each day, as well as lots of greens (I'm aiming for 4 as the magic number: 4 bunches daily of kale/chard/spinach/lettuce blend/parsley - dark leafy greens). Apart from that, carrots are cheap here this time of year, generally. I bought two large boxes of org. apples recently and have them in cold storage at a friend's. I am finding cucumber juice is really helping clear my skin up (one long english cucumber juiced daily), but certainly do find the green juices very cooling on my body, so I am using ginger in the juices to warm up, and am not opposed to a glass of warm water with lemon juice and a little cayenne as well. That, and a hot bath or shower. :) I realized that pomegranates are quite expensive to be juicing at $2 each, as are pineapples and cucumbers, really, as well, at over $2 each. I calculated one day at nearly $30 of produce that I juiced, so that's not really affordable for many people on a long-term basis ($900/month per person for groceries?!). So I'll have to remember how affordable celery and carrots are. :)

Other than juicing, I completed the first half of the Taoist Tai Chi internal arts and methods Instructor Training on the weekend and really enjoyed it. I also did 10 minutes of sitting meditation both morning and night and a set of tai chi daily for the past 4 days and am amazed how effortlessly the discipline is coming to do this, and how much I'm enjoying it.

My favourite new kids book is called Peaceful Piggy Meditation by Kerry Lynn MacLean , that we picked up in Halifax at Drala Books on Grafton St (http://www.dralabooks.com/). Absolutely LOVE this book and so do the kids. A must-have, imo, for families. :)

Namaste

~n~

Creative in the Kitchen...

[2nd post of the day] Today I have made some really yummy juice combinations. One was pineapple, red pepper, and celery (with E3Live). Another was carrot, beet and pomegranate. And another was lettuce mix, celery, apple, beet and ginger. I've really enjoyed the ginger in the juices today - it's so warming. And I recreated Doris at home: yam, carrot, apple, ginger and cinnamon - only I put too many apples in and not enough ginger or yam. Still, it was very good. One thing I'm struggling a bit with is drinking straight green juices. I am having a hard time letting go of fruit in all my juices. Anyone have any suggestions? I realize it's just a thought - and I can change a thought just be being open-minded. I'll have to sit with that one. ;)

The day is going great; I can't say I'm on a total juice feast - both yesterday and today I've eaten a few things - an apple, a banana, some veggies; but I am enjoying the juices and it is so nice to be home.

Oh, and I just wanted to add that it IS possible to run errands all day and still eat raw/drink raw juices. Yesterday we were out from 9 a.m. until 10:30 p.m. I made 4L of juices and put them in the cooler in the car and had an extra 1L jar that I used for drinking from. When it was empty I'd just refill from the cooler. Worked very well and while it may be second-rate to drinking freshly made juices as soon as they're made, it must be better for you than drinking pasteurized store-bought juices.

Namaste
~n~